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Allahu Akbar: Understanding the Great Mughal in Today's India
That he was a medieval king who, with a progressive bent of mind, dared to look ahead to find that common ground for all his people to stand together. That he was a medieval king who is today tempting us to look back into the past to see our future through his eyes. Ever since the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance government came to power in 2014 with Narendra Modi as the prime minister, an organised campaign began to vilify Emperor Akbar and the Mughals. While there were always voices that tried to project the Mughals as just another 'Islamic empire', ignoring the civilisational impact they had on India, even for them Akbar was a shining light in an otherwise era of darkness. Those talking in terms of easy binaries always found a 'good Muslim' in Akbar and a 'bad Muslim' in Aurangzeb. Academics and other liberals who could have countered this incorrect portrayal did not do it, dismissing such claims as mere screeches by the fringe that do not deserve any attention. But with the Hindu Right assuming political power, the fringe today has become the mainstream. And Akbar is no longer the 'good Muslim'. Why is there such hatred for Akbar, once the most loved king in India? What was the journey like, from being great to not-so-great? And how is this India different from Akbar's Hindustan? Has he become irrelevant in an India where growing Hindu nationalism threatens to alter the nature of the Indian state from a secular republic to a theocracy? Or is Akbar even more relevant today given the backdrop of hate that we all find ourselves in? Allahu Akbar seeks to find answers to these questions while providing a profile sketch of the emperor, his empire and his times.
- GenresHistoryIndiaNonfiction
446 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 18, 2019
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May 24, 2020
The rulers of India are no less beguiling today than they were when, as Manimugda Sharma says, the emperor Akbar was in vogue amongst Dutch republicans trying to create a new state.
Quite apart from the famed luxury of their courts and the exoticism that so easily transfers to the minds of distant foreigners from dimly imagined mental pictures; the leaders of South Asia often represent something special in the history of the world. The image of enlightened rule.
If we knew them better and compared them with our own past rulers, who would in their right minds not say that Ashoka ranked greater than any handful of English monarchs, not only for his conquests and his rejection of war itself but for his laws? Which are far more in tune with the classical ideal that Western Europeans have tried to harbour and rebuild since the fall of the western Roman Empire, than much of what replaced it.
Who, likewise, could arguably say with any credibility that Akbar the Great could not stand alongside any of the greatest contemporary kings and queens of Europe and not seem a little taller for his enlightened ideals of inclusion and, what Sharma calls the ‘physical and moral courage’ that makes great men beloved.
Though undoubtedly an inspiration to many in the past, since its independence India has rightly been a talisman to those who hold the promise of democracy near and dear to their hearts.
Rightly might citizens of the world’s largest republic revere the history of their march to liberty as a proud emblem to cherish. Therefore it is hardly surprising that the author feels a deep concern as he observes the course his nation is taking, and it should be no less concerning to the world either.
‘we are a medieval people,’ he writes at the end, ‘creating conditions in the country akin to those that prevailed in Akbar’s lifetime, always using past hurt to justify present hate, and therefore needing a medieval monarch to show us the way.’
As he told me over a long and interesting Skype call, it is never good when the rule of a 16th century emperor seems necessary or preferable than a democratically elected official, but if one were to wish for such an autocrat you would want Akbar. When I finished reading this book, I could not help but agree with this assessment.
On further contemplation I realised it is as important for the British to understand the Great Mughal as it is for the Indians.
In the British drive to establish themselves as rulers of India the legacy of the Mughals was a principle tool. Sharma points us to the importance of this element of baton passing by highlighting the importance of tiger hunts in Mughal court society.
In establishing himself as the perfect incarnation of universal kingship, the young emperor entertained his court with lavish hunts. The British would copy these and thus lend themselves to an image of shadow puppetry that is today a cypher for British rule in India.
It might be said that the British used Akbar and his dynasty as something as a template on which they could more easily assimilate themselves into the role as India’s overlords, they even took up some of his crusades, such as trying to abolish sati.
Nevertheless as the author told me, the idea of intolerance between Hindus and Muslims in India was encouraged to some degree by the British, who fostered the idea of the Mughals being foreign tyrants replaced by the enlighten rule of the Europeans.
Akbar by contrast strove to separate religion from society’s primary consciousness, and remove it as a source of division. Today it is this legacy of the British that is still causing the trouble and the lessons of Akbar are hard to learn from as a result.
There aren’t many writers that can make the past more present than Manimugdha Sharma can. The author has a hawk eyed knack of seeing across history, finding the similarities to the present and threading them together in a comprehensible narrative.
In saying that, one could say that this isn’t so much a biography of Akbar, but an investigation of the echo chamber of history. Sharma looks at the world and hears the echoes of distant resonance.
Allahu Akbar is a graceful read, with each paragraph revealing some detail of interest. Softly humorous and finely detailed, with sometimes wry, always sharp observations on the interplay of historical and modern issues.
One discovers in reading about the life of an extraordinary monarch that India’s politics have not changed very much. Sharma observes that candidates still attempt to vilify and deify through visual media, in the Mughal courts this was done through art and literature, whereas today it is done with much less subtlety and often exaggerated incompetence by keyboard warriors.
The results are nevertheless the same and the motives little removed from when Akbar was alive; to make governments and leaders seem untainted and untarnished as opposed to their opponents.
As a controversial figure in modern India, Akbar suffers from the stigma of being a Muslim emperor in a country with a Hindu majority and his indelible place in his country’s history, especially the interpretation of it, seems at times tenuous.
Akbar’s early reign was a dark time, filled with brutal battles, political murders and betrayals. Akbar, sought to establish himself as a king in both name and practice, and he projected this aura very effectively, not only once he regained his throne but as he was doing so, and the author does not shy away from his subject’s more unvarnished or inglorious exploits.
Fascinating elements are to be found at practically every turn, from the typical accounts of intrigue and conflict to personal things as well. Quite apart from the flowing prose of his chroniclers and his fine accomplishments, Akbar, can be seen as a coarse man, a soldier and a sportsman as much as diplomat or a courier. His language was the language of military camps and peasants and he wore coarse clothing and enjoyed it.
He mixed this with the piety of his father, which was devout, but not extremist, and he showed regret at the death of his enemies and when he could not show mercy as a beneficent, almost paternal, overlord.
Above all the great strength of the emperor was his attempt to create a unified and inclusive state that sought to draw the best out of the religions and philosophies of the world.
He was as some have said, a man of reason before the age of reason, and the people who have the will to effect change and not only that but apply such ideals are worthy of notice.
This is why Akbar is important, not only to India, but to the world, which is increasingly becoming a more insular place and in desperate need of uniting figures to admire.
Despite her poor understanding of who Akbar really was it is telling that when Elizabeth I, herself a persecutor of catholics like many of her dynasty, wrote to Akbar that it was his humanity that had spread even to her distant shore. Note she did not speak of the conquests and might of this descendent of Timur and Genghis Khan, but his humanity.
If that proves anything it proves that even in times of uncertainty, we don’t have to fear the foreign and the other.
Josh.
Quite apart from the famed luxury of their courts and the exoticism that so easily transfers to the minds of distant foreigners from dimly imagined mental pictures; the leaders of South Asia often represent something special in the history of the world. The image of enlightened rule.
If we knew them better and compared them with our own past rulers, who would in their right minds not say that Ashoka ranked greater than any handful of English monarchs, not only for his conquests and his rejection of war itself but for his laws? Which are far more in tune with the classical ideal that Western Europeans have tried to harbour and rebuild since the fall of the western Roman Empire, than much of what replaced it.
Who, likewise, could arguably say with any credibility that Akbar the Great could not stand alongside any of the greatest contemporary kings and queens of Europe and not seem a little taller for his enlightened ideals of inclusion and, what Sharma calls the ‘physical and moral courage’ that makes great men beloved.
Though undoubtedly an inspiration to many in the past, since its independence India has rightly been a talisman to those who hold the promise of democracy near and dear to their hearts.
Rightly might citizens of the world’s largest republic revere the history of their march to liberty as a proud emblem to cherish. Therefore it is hardly surprising that the author feels a deep concern as he observes the course his nation is taking, and it should be no less concerning to the world either.
‘we are a medieval people,’ he writes at the end, ‘creating conditions in the country akin to those that prevailed in Akbar’s lifetime, always using past hurt to justify present hate, and therefore needing a medieval monarch to show us the way.’
As he told me over a long and interesting Skype call, it is never good when the rule of a 16th century emperor seems necessary or preferable than a democratically elected official, but if one were to wish for such an autocrat you would want Akbar. When I finished reading this book, I could not help but agree with this assessment.
On further contemplation I realised it is as important for the British to understand the Great Mughal as it is for the Indians.
In the British drive to establish themselves as rulers of India the legacy of the Mughals was a principle tool. Sharma points us to the importance of this element of baton passing by highlighting the importance of tiger hunts in Mughal court society.
In establishing himself as the perfect incarnation of universal kingship, the young emperor entertained his court with lavish hunts. The British would copy these and thus lend themselves to an image of shadow puppetry that is today a cypher for British rule in India.
It might be said that the British used Akbar and his dynasty as something as a template on which they could more easily assimilate themselves into the role as India’s overlords, they even took up some of his crusades, such as trying to abolish sati.
Nevertheless as the author told me, the idea of intolerance between Hindus and Muslims in India was encouraged to some degree by the British, who fostered the idea of the Mughals being foreign tyrants replaced by the enlighten rule of the Europeans.
Akbar by contrast strove to separate religion from society’s primary consciousness, and remove it as a source of division. Today it is this legacy of the British that is still causing the trouble and the lessons of Akbar are hard to learn from as a result.
There aren’t many writers that can make the past more present than Manimugdha Sharma can. The author has a hawk eyed knack of seeing across history, finding the similarities to the present and threading them together in a comprehensible narrative.
In saying that, one could say that this isn’t so much a biography of Akbar, but an investigation of the echo chamber of history. Sharma looks at the world and hears the echoes of distant resonance.
Allahu Akbar is a graceful read, with each paragraph revealing some detail of interest. Softly humorous and finely detailed, with sometimes wry, always sharp observations on the interplay of historical and modern issues.
One discovers in reading about the life of an extraordinary monarch that India’s politics have not changed very much. Sharma observes that candidates still attempt to vilify and deify through visual media, in the Mughal courts this was done through art and literature, whereas today it is done with much less subtlety and often exaggerated incompetence by keyboard warriors.
The results are nevertheless the same and the motives little removed from when Akbar was alive; to make governments and leaders seem untainted and untarnished as opposed to their opponents.
As a controversial figure in modern India, Akbar suffers from the stigma of being a Muslim emperor in a country with a Hindu majority and his indelible place in his country’s history, especially the interpretation of it, seems at times tenuous.
Akbar’s early reign was a dark time, filled with brutal battles, political murders and betrayals. Akbar, sought to establish himself as a king in both name and practice, and he projected this aura very effectively, not only once he regained his throne but as he was doing so, and the author does not shy away from his subject’s more unvarnished or inglorious exploits.
Fascinating elements are to be found at practically every turn, from the typical accounts of intrigue and conflict to personal things as well. Quite apart from the flowing prose of his chroniclers and his fine accomplishments, Akbar, can be seen as a coarse man, a soldier and a sportsman as much as diplomat or a courier. His language was the language of military camps and peasants and he wore coarse clothing and enjoyed it.
He mixed this with the piety of his father, which was devout, but not extremist, and he showed regret at the death of his enemies and when he could not show mercy as a beneficent, almost paternal, overlord.
Above all the great strength of the emperor was his attempt to create a unified and inclusive state that sought to draw the best out of the religions and philosophies of the world.
He was as some have said, a man of reason before the age of reason, and the people who have the will to effect change and not only that but apply such ideals are worthy of notice.
This is why Akbar is important, not only to India, but to the world, which is increasingly becoming a more insular place and in desperate need of uniting figures to admire.
Despite her poor understanding of who Akbar really was it is telling that when Elizabeth I, herself a persecutor of catholics like many of her dynasty, wrote to Akbar that it was his humanity that had spread even to her distant shore. Note she did not speak of the conquests and might of this descendent of Timur and Genghis Khan, but his humanity.
If that proves anything it proves that even in times of uncertainty, we don’t have to fear the foreign and the other.
Josh.
September 30, 2025
History is written by the winners. That’s the only certain truth as far as historiography is concerned. India was reeling under the yoke of Islamic imperialism for nearly eight centuries. They conquered us, destroyed our temples, killed millions, took many millions of both sexes as slaves, forcibly converted several millions and did one other thing that was more shattering and everlasting than the others. They tampered with our cultural DNA and created a class of people who actually believe that India benefitted from the above-mentioned bouts of extreme repression. In the present day, the Left-Islamist nexus bankrolls them and offer them plum positions in academia and pliant journalism. The Mughals was just another Muslim dynasty that produced two centuries of hell in India’s long history. But one thing must be admitted here. Of the six monarchs who are considered Great Mughals, Jalaluddin Muhammad Akbar’s rule was the most tolerant. If you scour Islamic history for tolerant kings, perhaps Salahuddin al-Ayyubi might be the only other person you’d find. This book is an effort to understand Emperor Akbar in today’s India. This is a highly censored version which is laudatory to Mughals and worthless as history. The book projects many medieval events onto modern sensibilities and raises political propaganda to claim that the present prime minister, Narendra Modi, is not fit to rule India which was once reigned by such greats as Akbar. Nehru and even Rahul Gandhi is favourably compared to Akbar in this book, but it claims that in view of the Gujarat riots of 2002, Modi broke India while Akbar united it. The book’s title signifies the Muslim battle cry which means that ‘God is Great’. By a clever twist, this also means that ‘Akbar is God’ which was used as a term of salutation by Akbar’s cronies. In that sense, the title is apt for the book because the author practically treats him as divine. Manimugdha S. Sharma is a Delhi-based journalist. He takes a keen interest in politics, military history, the Mughal and British empires and the two world wars. This is his first book in English.
The author confesses that this book was indebted to critical input from the Islamist historians Irfan Habib and Ali Nadeem Rezawi. This makes the author’s pitiable attempts to glorify the Mughals at least comprehensible. A crucial finding in the book is the intellectual and ‘rational’ bend of the Mughal mind. When Hamida Bano, Akbar’s mother, went into labour, court astrologers wanted to prolong it till a later propitious time. But the courtiers rebuffed them saying that ‘things would happen when God willed it’. This fatalistic remark is exalted as a ‘glimpse of the rational minded high society the Mughals had’. However, he notes that Akbar was born at the exact moment the astrologers predicted! Just a few pages later, he concedes that Humayun assigned commands and offices based on the star sign of officers (p.8). The irony is that on the same page he makes this observation, he cannot help remark that ‘Islam condemns soothsaying and endorses natural sciences’ (p.8). It’s a fair guess that it is in such innocuous-looking comments that we see the influence of Habib and Rezawi. The author disgraces himself by praising slavery which was rampant in Islam. He claims that a slave in an Islamic society could rise to become master one day and that slaves were often raised by their masters as their own children, giving them education, training, grooming and teaching them every skill required to rise high in society (p.256). Readers should keep in mind that he is simply sugar-coating the heinous institution of slavery! On the other hand, the author himself may be thought to signify how such a slave would look like in modern times – in the intellectual sense at least. There are several fabricated stories in the narrative such as Humayun recoiling in disgust from a dish of beef and Babur prohibiting cow-slaughter because he was a pragmatic king!
What makes this book not even worth the paper on which it is printed is the political and Islamist propaganda it carries against the present Narendra Modi government in India. You can of course criticize the government for whatever reason, but what does a history book on Mughals has to do with present-day party politics? This book seems to be part of a paid effort that works with political targets in mind written to coincide with the 2019 general elections in India. The author claims that BJP’s election campaigns since 2014 have hinged on Goebbelsian propaganda (p.20). Akbar’s birthday is not certain. He compares this to Modi and says, “Narendra Modi himself has been in the eye of the storm throughout his term for alleged discrepancies in his date of birth as well” (p.7). And, ‘Modi government has a medieval impulse on vilifying opposition’ (p.61). Babur and Akbar erected towers of skulls of enemies vanquished in battle. This is compared to the Modi government’s alleged tendency to seeing minorities as the ‘other’ (p.75). As you can see, the examples are not congruent with the argument but the author compulsively makes these deranged exercises like an obsession. Moreover, he cites several episodes from history and concludes that ‘Akbar was not doing anything that hadn’t been done before and wouldn’t be done again’ (p.78), probably meaning the erection of skull towers. Modi’s scrapping of the outdated and anachronous Planning Commission and putting in NITI Aayog in its place is compared to Akbar’s regent, Bairam Khan, assuming more powers to himself (p.87). Another allegation is that exaggeration is seen in Modi regime’s success stories (p.82). Modi issues ‘diktats to schoolchildren, bureaucrats or factory workers to show up at state or party events since 2014’ (p.14). Also, mass killings were not acceptable in Mughal times as it is now (p.111). Akbar captured Delhi defeating Hemu, who briefly held Delhi by ousting Humayun’s army. Hemu rose from humble origins and the author remarks that ‘one doesn’t get too many instances of someone rising through the ranks like this’ (p.51). However, he does not make the obvious comparison to Modi at this point, who had also risen from a very poor and socially backward family. Graciousness is not a virtue of this wily and partisan journalist who had written this book.
This book glorifies the invaders and slave-masters and vilifies the hapless natives who went down fighting these monstrously destructive powers. Sharma has no compunction to portray an act of blood-curdling cruelty as necessary for a monarch. He claims that Humayun fought his brothers without hating them (!); he loved all his brothers; he had a guilt complex in fighting them (p.28). But in reality, the incident of Humayun blinding his brother makes a terrible read. He pierced a sharp, hot needle through his own brother Kamran’s eyes after capturing him. Dirk Collier notes in his excellent book The Great Mughals and Their India that ‘the lancet was pierced into both eyes about fifty times to make the deed fool proof. The prince bravely withstood the torture, but at the end of it when a mixture of lemon juice and salt was sprinkled on the wound, he broke down and cried out loudly in pain’ (read review here). The author berates the Rajputs entirely as a class – those who fought the Mughals to the last man committing jauhar and saka and those who submitted to them and gave away their daughters to the Mughal harem. Sharma notes with contempt that Rajput ruling families managed to survive until modern times by bowing to every ascendant star on the political horizon, just like grass blades that weather every storm by bending. Some Rajputs fought on the Mughal side against fellow Rajputs. It is interesting to observe how the Mughal chroniclers viewed these fratricidal contests. Badaoni, the Mughal biographer of Akbar through his book Muntakhab ut-Tawarikh, claims that this was a ploy to get kaffirs (infidels) killed by their brethren and to save Muslims the trouble (p.207). But our journalist author chips in with a salvaging comment that Badauni’s remark ‘was not the Mughal state’s view’. How does he deduce this against the written word of a contemporary who knew things better?
Manimugdha Sharma quite literally imagines or wishes that the Mughals gave strict punishment for rape. This ruse is only to make them more appealing to modern sensibilities. He claims that Jahangir demoted Muqarrab Khan, the governor of Gujarat, because he raped a Hindu woman. He is not able to find a reference for this assertion on the period texts, but suggests that his patron, Prof. Ali Nadeem Rezawi of the Aligarh Muslim University, had told him so (p.144). It is amusing that on the immediate previous page, it is asserted that the Mughal Islamic state mandated the testimony of four witnesses to attest to the victim’s version to award sentence to the offenders (p.143). He then maliciously compares the rape of a minor Muslim girl at Kathua to this incident and implies that Hinduism is involved in this brutal incident. To establish the culpability of patriarchal polytheistic religions in sanctioning rape, he describes the story of Medusa from Greek mythology. Medusa was raped and then punished by the gods. Akbar promoted eunuchs in bureaucracy much unlike his predecessors. Those outside the court was still treated with contempt. Even today, Indian politicos and the society at large have not been able to do better than Akbar (p.122). After several rounds of grandstanding, the author ruefully admits that Akbar mercilessly slaughtered tens of thousands in the siege of Chittor in 1568. The emperor then went straight to the shrine of Moinudeen Chishti in Ajmer and proclaimed that his mujahids (holy warriors) defeated kaffirs at Chittor. To iron this out, Sharma slyly assures that this was only a ‘religious rhetorical invocation’ (p.168).
Make no mistake about it that I fully share the author’s conviction that Akbar was the most tolerant of the Mughals – especially in the latter half of his reign. He built the ibadat khana for religious discourse which admitted only Muslim theologians at first. When the emperor realised the hollowness of their arguments, he invited speakers from other religions too. He never joined any of them, but introduced one himself called din e-ilahi, which was nothing more than a kind of personal worship of the emperor. A doubt which is usually pointed at Akbar’s religiosity (or the lack of it) is that whether he had turned ex-Muslim (in the modern sense of the term). The author does not even pronounce it, because his Islamist mentors would not allow it; but gives subtle hints that it may be so. He remarks that since Akbar didn’t go through the formal education process of the time, which involved theological lessons, he had a relatively unencumbered mind that was open to receiving different ideas (p.239). The author quotes Badaoni in such a way as to hint that the emperor had become an apostate. Badaoni sullenly points out that ‘His Majesty had the early history of Islam read out to him and soon began to think less of the companions of the Prophet; soon after, he felt the five prayers, fasts of Ramadan and the belief in everything connected with the Prophet were vain superstitions’ (p.218). When Jahangir rose in revolt against his father, one of the accusations was that Akbar had converted many of the mosques into storehouses and stables. Badaoni also mentions that Akbar dropped all references to the name ‘Muhammad’ and shortened his own name to ‘Jalaluddin Akbar’ (p.227). He assumed the title of amir ul-Mominin (commander of the faithful) which was a break from tradition and a snub to the Ottoman caliphs. The author then argues that ‘this was the reason why Muslim soldiers of the Indian army had no qualms about going to war against the Ottoman empire and Indian Muslims never bothered about the Ottoman caliph’ (p. 222). This is a plain falsehood and raises the question whether he had heard about the Khilafat agitation, which was a bloody episode in India’s freedom struggle and the only instance when Muslims came out in support of Gandhi and his party.
This book is a feeble attempt to understand Akbar in his own time and examine his relevance in our own time. Unfortunately, the author has made the latter part a political slugfest on Narendra Modi. He admits that he has picked some episodes from Akbar’s life story and left out some others (p.xxv) which means that it is a sanitized, if not censored, version. This is a fairy-tale book on Akbar fit for indoctrinating young minds who have not developed the faculty of critical thinking. The author claims himself an Ekalavya and the Islamist historian Irfan Habib as his Dronacharya and consoles that he has not lost his thumb at the end of it. He may have retained his thumb, but certainly has lost common sense and self-pride. This book pompously describes battle stories from European wars in a bid to compare them with Mughals’ experiences and to appear erudite. Most of these stories are irrelevant and uninteresting. They seem to be selected by AI. Sharma calls his detractors ‘weekend historians’ and ‘Twitter professors. He himself fits the bill. His logic is preposterous in the case of many observations. The book declares that Rahul Gandhi comes close to Akbar in unconventional ways because ‘he has ridden bikes and ate with Dalit families’ while Modi has not (p.252-3). The book also includes a discussion on movies such as Jodhaa Akbar and TV serials depicting the Mughal emperor.
This petty political baggage of a book is not recommended.
The author confesses that this book was indebted to critical input from the Islamist historians Irfan Habib and Ali Nadeem Rezawi. This makes the author’s pitiable attempts to glorify the Mughals at least comprehensible. A crucial finding in the book is the intellectual and ‘rational’ bend of the Mughal mind. When Hamida Bano, Akbar’s mother, went into labour, court astrologers wanted to prolong it till a later propitious time. But the courtiers rebuffed them saying that ‘things would happen when God willed it’. This fatalistic remark is exalted as a ‘glimpse of the rational minded high society the Mughals had’. However, he notes that Akbar was born at the exact moment the astrologers predicted! Just a few pages later, he concedes that Humayun assigned commands and offices based on the star sign of officers (p.8). The irony is that on the same page he makes this observation, he cannot help remark that ‘Islam condemns soothsaying and endorses natural sciences’ (p.8). It’s a fair guess that it is in such innocuous-looking comments that we see the influence of Habib and Rezawi. The author disgraces himself by praising slavery which was rampant in Islam. He claims that a slave in an Islamic society could rise to become master one day and that slaves were often raised by their masters as their own children, giving them education, training, grooming and teaching them every skill required to rise high in society (p.256). Readers should keep in mind that he is simply sugar-coating the heinous institution of slavery! On the other hand, the author himself may be thought to signify how such a slave would look like in modern times – in the intellectual sense at least. There are several fabricated stories in the narrative such as Humayun recoiling in disgust from a dish of beef and Babur prohibiting cow-slaughter because he was a pragmatic king!
What makes this book not even worth the paper on which it is printed is the political and Islamist propaganda it carries against the present Narendra Modi government in India. You can of course criticize the government for whatever reason, but what does a history book on Mughals has to do with present-day party politics? This book seems to be part of a paid effort that works with political targets in mind written to coincide with the 2019 general elections in India. The author claims that BJP’s election campaigns since 2014 have hinged on Goebbelsian propaganda (p.20). Akbar’s birthday is not certain. He compares this to Modi and says, “Narendra Modi himself has been in the eye of the storm throughout his term for alleged discrepancies in his date of birth as well” (p.7). And, ‘Modi government has a medieval impulse on vilifying opposition’ (p.61). Babur and Akbar erected towers of skulls of enemies vanquished in battle. This is compared to the Modi government’s alleged tendency to seeing minorities as the ‘other’ (p.75). As you can see, the examples are not congruent with the argument but the author compulsively makes these deranged exercises like an obsession. Moreover, he cites several episodes from history and concludes that ‘Akbar was not doing anything that hadn’t been done before and wouldn’t be done again’ (p.78), probably meaning the erection of skull towers. Modi’s scrapping of the outdated and anachronous Planning Commission and putting in NITI Aayog in its place is compared to Akbar’s regent, Bairam Khan, assuming more powers to himself (p.87). Another allegation is that exaggeration is seen in Modi regime’s success stories (p.82). Modi issues ‘diktats to schoolchildren, bureaucrats or factory workers to show up at state or party events since 2014’ (p.14). Also, mass killings were not acceptable in Mughal times as it is now (p.111). Akbar captured Delhi defeating Hemu, who briefly held Delhi by ousting Humayun’s army. Hemu rose from humble origins and the author remarks that ‘one doesn’t get too many instances of someone rising through the ranks like this’ (p.51). However, he does not make the obvious comparison to Modi at this point, who had also risen from a very poor and socially backward family. Graciousness is not a virtue of this wily and partisan journalist who had written this book.
This book glorifies the invaders and slave-masters and vilifies the hapless natives who went down fighting these monstrously destructive powers. Sharma has no compunction to portray an act of blood-curdling cruelty as necessary for a monarch. He claims that Humayun fought his brothers without hating them (!); he loved all his brothers; he had a guilt complex in fighting them (p.28). But in reality, the incident of Humayun blinding his brother makes a terrible read. He pierced a sharp, hot needle through his own brother Kamran’s eyes after capturing him. Dirk Collier notes in his excellent book The Great Mughals and Their India that ‘the lancet was pierced into both eyes about fifty times to make the deed fool proof. The prince bravely withstood the torture, but at the end of it when a mixture of lemon juice and salt was sprinkled on the wound, he broke down and cried out loudly in pain’ (read review here). The author berates the Rajputs entirely as a class – those who fought the Mughals to the last man committing jauhar and saka and those who submitted to them and gave away their daughters to the Mughal harem. Sharma notes with contempt that Rajput ruling families managed to survive until modern times by bowing to every ascendant star on the political horizon, just like grass blades that weather every storm by bending. Some Rajputs fought on the Mughal side against fellow Rajputs. It is interesting to observe how the Mughal chroniclers viewed these fratricidal contests. Badaoni, the Mughal biographer of Akbar through his book Muntakhab ut-Tawarikh, claims that this was a ploy to get kaffirs (infidels) killed by their brethren and to save Muslims the trouble (p.207). But our journalist author chips in with a salvaging comment that Badauni’s remark ‘was not the Mughal state’s view’. How does he deduce this against the written word of a contemporary who knew things better?
Manimugdha Sharma quite literally imagines or wishes that the Mughals gave strict punishment for rape. This ruse is only to make them more appealing to modern sensibilities. He claims that Jahangir demoted Muqarrab Khan, the governor of Gujarat, because he raped a Hindu woman. He is not able to find a reference for this assertion on the period texts, but suggests that his patron, Prof. Ali Nadeem Rezawi of the Aligarh Muslim University, had told him so (p.144). It is amusing that on the immediate previous page, it is asserted that the Mughal Islamic state mandated the testimony of four witnesses to attest to the victim’s version to award sentence to the offenders (p.143). He then maliciously compares the rape of a minor Muslim girl at Kathua to this incident and implies that Hinduism is involved in this brutal incident. To establish the culpability of patriarchal polytheistic religions in sanctioning rape, he describes the story of Medusa from Greek mythology. Medusa was raped and then punished by the gods. Akbar promoted eunuchs in bureaucracy much unlike his predecessors. Those outside the court was still treated with contempt. Even today, Indian politicos and the society at large have not been able to do better than Akbar (p.122). After several rounds of grandstanding, the author ruefully admits that Akbar mercilessly slaughtered tens of thousands in the siege of Chittor in 1568. The emperor then went straight to the shrine of Moinudeen Chishti in Ajmer and proclaimed that his mujahids (holy warriors) defeated kaffirs at Chittor. To iron this out, Sharma slyly assures that this was only a ‘religious rhetorical invocation’ (p.168).
Make no mistake about it that I fully share the author’s conviction that Akbar was the most tolerant of the Mughals – especially in the latter half of his reign. He built the ibadat khana for religious discourse which admitted only Muslim theologians at first. When the emperor realised the hollowness of their arguments, he invited speakers from other religions too. He never joined any of them, but introduced one himself called din e-ilahi, which was nothing more than a kind of personal worship of the emperor. A doubt which is usually pointed at Akbar’s religiosity (or the lack of it) is that whether he had turned ex-Muslim (in the modern sense of the term). The author does not even pronounce it, because his Islamist mentors would not allow it; but gives subtle hints that it may be so. He remarks that since Akbar didn’t go through the formal education process of the time, which involved theological lessons, he had a relatively unencumbered mind that was open to receiving different ideas (p.239). The author quotes Badaoni in such a way as to hint that the emperor had become an apostate. Badaoni sullenly points out that ‘His Majesty had the early history of Islam read out to him and soon began to think less of the companions of the Prophet; soon after, he felt the five prayers, fasts of Ramadan and the belief in everything connected with the Prophet were vain superstitions’ (p.218). When Jahangir rose in revolt against his father, one of the accusations was that Akbar had converted many of the mosques into storehouses and stables. Badaoni also mentions that Akbar dropped all references to the name ‘Muhammad’ and shortened his own name to ‘Jalaluddin Akbar’ (p.227). He assumed the title of amir ul-Mominin (commander of the faithful) which was a break from tradition and a snub to the Ottoman caliphs. The author then argues that ‘this was the reason why Muslim soldiers of the Indian army had no qualms about going to war against the Ottoman empire and Indian Muslims never bothered about the Ottoman caliph’ (p. 222). This is a plain falsehood and raises the question whether he had heard about the Khilafat agitation, which was a bloody episode in India’s freedom struggle and the only instance when Muslims came out in support of Gandhi and his party.
This book is a feeble attempt to understand Akbar in his own time and examine his relevance in our own time. Unfortunately, the author has made the latter part a political slugfest on Narendra Modi. He admits that he has picked some episodes from Akbar’s life story and left out some others (p.xxv) which means that it is a sanitized, if not censored, version. This is a fairy-tale book on Akbar fit for indoctrinating young minds who have not developed the faculty of critical thinking. The author claims himself an Ekalavya and the Islamist historian Irfan Habib as his Dronacharya and consoles that he has not lost his thumb at the end of it. He may have retained his thumb, but certainly has lost common sense and self-pride. This book pompously describes battle stories from European wars in a bid to compare them with Mughals’ experiences and to appear erudite. Most of these stories are irrelevant and uninteresting. They seem to be selected by AI. Sharma calls his detractors ‘weekend historians’ and ‘Twitter professors. He himself fits the bill. His logic is preposterous in the case of many observations. The book declares that Rahul Gandhi comes close to Akbar in unconventional ways because ‘he has ridden bikes and ate with Dalit families’ while Modi has not (p.252-3). The book also includes a discussion on movies such as Jodhaa Akbar and TV serials depicting the Mughal emperor.
This petty political baggage of a book is not recommended.
June 23, 2020
Not every historian is a good writer. I felt The book is written in a haphazard way and there is no cohesion. Though a commendable effort been made comparing 16th century India to 21st century India but there is very evident bias in the writing and even an apolitical person can sense it.
Anyway I did learn a lot about Akbar and his reign ... he was visionary (for the time ) and did understand that the need to take groups with diverse political and cultural view points together to build his grand empire. Something we need even in 21st century.
Anyway I did learn a lot about Akbar and his reign ... he was visionary (for the time ) and did understand that the need to take groups with diverse political and cultural view points together to build his grand empire. Something we need even in 21st century.
Want to read
October 26, 2019This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 23, 2022
A little disappointed with author’s decision to try n draw parallels with current party in power, it felt forced at times. Felt like a lot of examples could have been linked to pre 2014. I loved last two chapters though, wanted to read more of it.
September 5, 2020
Really captivating. Loved the modern day examples to help put things in perspective. Captures the remarkable personality of the Mughal emperor, how he negotiated the myriad complexities of the country he ruled. Indian history often takes a backseat in western narratives of how things unfolded. Makes the point that this empire was a strong equal to the ottomans of the time and certainly was way ahead of its time in embracing secularity and acceptance of alternate ideas. Makes a strong case for modern day leaders to learn from this unique example for history.
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